TELLS OF ABSURD, AS WELL AS EVIL, DOINGS, AND WINDS UP WITH A HORRID
SURPRISE.
Whether Pedro's pursuers continued the chase as far as the Indian
hunter's hut we cannot tell, for long before noon of the following day
our travellers were far from the hunting-grounds of the gallant savage.
Soon after the usual midday siesta, the canoe, which contained the whole
of the hunter's worldly wealth, was run on the beach near to the spot
where dwelt his father-in-law with many members of his tribe.
That worthy old man, in a light evening costume consisting of a cotton
shirt and straw hat, came down to receive his children, who landed amid
much noise with their boys and girls and household gods, including the
red monkey, the parrot, the flamingo, the fat guinea-pig, the turtle,
and the infant tapir. The old chief was quite willing to take care of
the family during the absence of his son-in-law, and was very pressing
in his offers of hospitality to the white travellers, but Pedro refused
to delay more than an hour at the village.
The old man also evinced a considerable amount of curiosity in regard to
Manuela, and made one or two attempts to engage her in conversation, but
on being informed by Pedro that she belonged to a tribe living half-way
between his hunting-grounds and the regions of Patagonia, and that she
did not understand his dialect at all, he forbore to question her, and
satisfied himself with simply gazing.
After a farewell which was wonderfully affectionate for savages, Spotted
Tiger embarked in Pedro's canoe, and, pushing off into the river, bade
the Indians adieu.
The canoe in which the party now travelled belonged to Tiger, and was
larger as well as more commodious than that in which they had hitherto
journeyed, having a gondola-like cabin constructed of grasses and
palm-leaves, underneath which Manuela found shelter from the sun. In
the evenings Pedro could lie at full length on the top of it and smoke
his cigarette. They were floating with the current, you see, and did
not require to labour much at the paddles at that time.
It would weary the reader were we to continue our description of the
daily proceedings of our adventurers in journalistic form. To get on
with our tale requires that we should advance by bounds, and even
flights--not exactly of fancy, but over stretches of space and time,
though now and then we may find it desirable to creep or even to stand
still.
We request the reader to creep with us at present, and quietly listen
while Pedro and Tiger talk.
Pedro lies extended on his back on the roof of the gondola-like cabin,
his hands under his head, his knees elevated, and a cigarette in his
mouth. Lawrence and Quashy are leaning in more or less lazy attitudes
on the gunwale of the canoe, indulging now and then in a few remarks,
which do not merit attention. Manuela, also in a reclining attitude,
rests under the shade of the erection on which Pedro lies, listening to
their discourse. Tiger is the only one on duty, but his labour is
light: it consists merely of holding the steering oar, and guiding the
light craft along the smooth current of the river. Pedro lies with his
head to the stern, so that his talk with the Indian is conducted, so to
speak, upside-down. But that does not seem to incommode them, for the
ideas probably turn right end foremost in passing to and fro.
Of course their language is in the Indian tongue. We translate.
"Tiger," said Pedro, sending a long whiff of smoke straight up towards
the bright blue sky, where the sun was beginning to descend towards his
western couch, "we shan't make much, I fear, of the men of this part of
the country."
"I did not expect that you would," replied the Indian, giving a gentle
turn to his oar in order to clear a mudbank, on which a number of
alligators were basking comfortably.
"Why so, Tiger? Surely peace and good government are as desirable to
them as to others."
"No doubt, but many of them do not love peace. They are young. Their
blood is hot, and they have nothing to do. When that is so, war is
pleasant to them. It is natural. Man must work, or play, or fight. He
cannot lie still. Those who are killed cannot return to tell their
comrades what fools they have been, so those that remain are greater
fools than ever."
"I agree with you, Tiger; but you see it is not the young men who have
the making of war, though they generally get all the doing of it, and
the poor women and children take the consequences; it is the governors,
whom one would expect to show some sort of wisdom, and recognise the
fact that union is strength, and that respect for Law is the only hope
of the land."
"Governors," returned Tiger, in a deep voice, "are not only fools, but
villains--tyrants!"
The Indian spoke with such evidence of suppressed indignation that Pedro
tried to look at him.
The aspect of his frowning countenance upside-down was not conducive to
gravity.
"Come, Tiger," said Pedro, with a tendency to laugh, "they are not all
tyrants; I know one or two who are not bad fellows."
"_I_ know one who is a fool and a robber."
"Indeed. What has he done to make you so bitter?" asked Pedro.
"Made us wear spectacles!" replied the Indian, sternly.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you not heard about it?"
"No; you know I have been away in Chili for some time, and am ignorant
of much that has been going on in these parts."
"There is in Spain a white man, I know not who," said Tiger, with an
expression of ineffable contempt, "but he must be the chief of the fools
among the white men, who seem to me to be all fools together."
"Thank you for the compliment," said Pedro, with a laugh.
"This white fool," continued Tiger, paying no regard to his friend's
interruption, "thought that he would send out here for sale some
spectacles--glass things, you know, that old white men look through when
they cannot see. We Indians, as you know, never need such things. We
can see well as long as we live. It is supposed that a mistake was made
by some one, for something like a canoe-load of spectacles was sent
out--so many that in a hundred years the white men could not have used
them up. The trader knew not what to do. There was no sale for them.
He applied to the governor--that robber of whom I have spoken. He said
to the trader, with a wink of his eye--that sort of wink which the white
fool gives when he means to pass from folly to knavery--`Wait,' he said,
`and you shall see.' Then he issued an order that no Indian should dare
to appear in his district, or in church during festival-days, _without
spectacles_! The consequence was that the spectacles were all sold. I
know not the price of these foolish things, but some white men told me
they were sold at an enormous profit."
Although Pedro sympathised heartily with his brown friend in his
indignation, he could not quite repress a smile at the ridiculous ideas
called up. Fortunately the Indian failed to interpret an upside-down
smile, particularly with the moustache, as it were, below instead of
above the mouth, and a cigarette in the lips. It was too complicated.
"And were _you_ obliged to buy and wear a pair of these spectacles,
Tiger?" asked Pedro, after a few silent puffs.
"Yes--look! here they are," he replied, with inconceivable bitterness,
drawing forth the implements of vision from his pouch and fixing them on
his nose with intense disgust. Then, suddenly plucking them off; he
hurled them into the river, and said savagely--"I was a Christian once,
but I am not a Christian _now_."
"How? what do you mean?" asked Pedro, raising himself on his elbow at
this, so as to look straightly as well as gravely at his friend.
"I mean that the religion of such men must be false," growled the
Indian, somewhat defiantly.
"Now, Tiger," returned his friend in a remonstrative tone, "that is not
spoken with your usual wisdom. The religion which a man professes may
be true, though his profession of it may be false. However, I am not
unwilling to admit that the view of our religion which is presented in
this land is false--very false. Nevertheless, Christianity is true. I
will have some talk with you at another time on this subject, my friend.
Meanwhile, let us return to the point from which we broke off--the
disturbed state of this unhappy country."
Let us pause here, reader, to assure you that this incident of the
spectacles is no fiction. Well would it be for the South American
Republics at this day, as well as for the good name of Spain, if the
poor aborigines of South America had nothing more serious to complain of
than the arbitrary act of the dishonest governor referred to; but it is
a melancholy fact that, ever since the conquest of Peru by Pizarro, the
Spaniards have treated the Indians with brutal severity, and it is no
wonder that revenge of the fiercest nature still lingers in the breasts
of the descendants of those unfortunate savages.
Probably our reader knows that the Peruvian region of the Andes is rich
in gold and silver-mines. These the Spanish conquerors worked by means
of Indian slave labour. Not long after the conquest a compulsory system
of personal toil was established, whereby a certain proportion of the
natives of each district were appointed by lot to work in the mines.
Every individual who obtained a grant of a mine became entitled to a
certain number of Indians to work it, and every mine which remained
unwrought for a year and a day became the property of any one who chose
to claim and work it. As there were many hundreds of mines registered
in Peru alone, it may be imagined what a host of Indians were
consequently condemned to a degraded state of slavery.
The labour of the mines was so dreadful that each unfortunate on whom
the lot fell considered it equivalent to his death-warrant. And that
there was ground for this belief is proved by the fact that not more
than one in six of the Indians condemned to the mines survived the
treatment there inflicted. Each mitayo, or conscript, received
nominally two shillings a day. But he never actually received it. On
his fate being fixed by lot, the poor fellow carried his wife and
children to the mines with him, and made arrangements for never again
returning home. His food and lodging, being supplied by his employers,
(owners?) were furnished at such an extravagant rate that he always
found himself in debt at the end of his first year--if he outlived it.
In that case he was not allowed to leave until his debt was paid, which,
of course, it never was.
Usually, however, the bad air and heavy labour of the mines, coupled
with grief, told so much on men accustomed to the fresh air and free
life of the wilderness, that death closed the scene before the first
year of servitude was out. It is said that above eight millions of
natives have perished thus in the mines of Peru.
We have shown briefly one of the many phases of tyrannical cruelty
practised by the conquerors of the land. Here is another specimen. At
first there were few merchants in Peru, therefore privilege was granted
to the Spanish corregidors, or governors of districts, to import goods
suitable for Indians, and barter them at a fair price. Of course this
permission was abused, and trade became a compulsory and disgraceful
traffic. Useless and worthless articles and damaged goods--razors, for
instance, silk stockings, velvets, etcetera--were forced on Indians who
preferred naked feet and had no beards.
The deeds of the soldiers, miners, and governors were but too readily
copied by the priests, many of whom were rapacious villains who had
chosen the crucifix as their weapon instead of the sword. One priest,
for instance, besides his regular dues and fees, received during the
year as _presents_, which he _exacted_ at certain festivals, 200 sheep,
6000 head of poultry, 4000 guinea-pigs, and 50,000 eggs, and he would
not say mass on those festival-days until a due proportion of the
presents was delivered. And this case of extortion is not told of one
of the priests of old. It occurred in the second quarter of the present
century. Another priest summoned a widow to make declaration of the
property left her by her husband, so that he might fix the scale of his
burial fees! He made a high demand. She implored his mercy, reminding
him of her large family. He was inexorable, but offered to give up his
claim if she would give him her eldest son--a boy of eight--to be sold
as a slave or given away as a present. (It seems that the senhoras of
those lands want such boys to carry their kneeling carpets.) The civil
authorities could not be appealed to in this case. There was no
redress, so the widow had to agree to give up her son! Doubtless both
in camp and in church there may have been good men, but if so, they form
an almost invisible minority on the page of Peruvian history.
In short, tyranny in every form was, and for centuries has been,
practised by the white men on the savages; and it is not a matter of
wonder that the memory of these things rankles in the Indian's bosom
even at the present time, and that in recent books of travel we read of
deeds of diabolical cruelty and revenge which we, in peaceful England,
are too apt to think of as belonging exclusively to the days of old.
But let us return to our friends in the little canoe.
"To tell you the truth," said Pedro to the Indian, "I am deeply
disappointed with the result of my mission. It is not so much that men
do not see the advantages and necessity for union, as that they are
heartless and indifferent--caring nothing, apparently, for the welfare
of the land, so long as the wants and pleasures of the present hour are
supplied."
"Has it ever been otherwise?" asked Tiger, with grave severity of
expression.
"Well, I confess that my reading of history does not warrant me to say
that it has; but my reading of the good Creator's Word entitles me to
hope for and strive after better times."
"I know not," returned the Indian, with a far-off, pensive look, "what
your histories say. I cannot read. There are no books in my tongue,
but my memory is strong. The stories, true stories, of my fathers reach
very far back--to the time before the white man came to curse the
land,--and I remember no time in which men did not desire each other's
property, and slay each other for revenge. It is man's nature, as it is
the river's nature to flow down hill."
"It is man's fallen, not his first, nature," said Pedro. "Things were
as bad in England once. They are not quite so bad now. God's law has
made the difference. However, we must take things here as we find them,
and I'm sorry to think that up to this point my mission has been a
failure. Indeed, the last effort, as you know, nearly cost me my life."
"And what will you now do?" asked Tiger.
"I will visit a few more places in the hope that some of the people may
support us. After that, I'll mount and away over the Pampas to Buenos
Ayres; see the colonel, and deliver Manuela to her father."
"The white-haired chief?" asked Tiger.
"Even so," replied Pedro.
During the foregoing conversation Quashy had thrust his fat nose down on
a plank and gone to sleep, while Lawrence and Manuela, having nothing
better to do, taught each other Spanish and English respectively! And,
strange though it may appear, it is a fact that Manuela, with all her
quick-witted intelligence, was wonderfully slow at learning English. To
Lawrence's intense astonishment and, it must be confessed, to his no
small disappointment, the Indian maiden not only made the same blunders
over and over again, and seemed to be incapable of making progress, but
even laughed at her own stupidity. This somewhat cooled his admiration
of her character, which coolness afforded him satisfaction rather than
the reverse, as going far to prove that he was not really, (as how could
he be?) _in love_ with the brown-skinned, uneducated, half-savage girl,
but only much impressed with her amiable qualities. Poor fellow, he was
much comforted by these thoughts, because, had it been otherwise, how
terrible would have been his fate!--either, on the one hand, to marry
her and go and dwell with her savage relations--perhaps be compelled to
paint his visage scarlet with arabesque devices in charcoal, and go on
the war-path against the white man; or, on the other hand, to introduce
his Indian bride into the _salons_ of civilisation, with the certainty
of beholding the sneer of contempt on the face of outraged society; with
the probability of innumerable violations of the rules of etiquette, and
the possibility of Manuela exhibiting the squaw's preference for the
floor to a chair, fingers to knives and forks, and--pooh! the thing was
absurd, _utterly_ out of the question!
Towards sunset they came to a part of the river where there were a good
many sandbanks, as well as extensive reaches of sand along shore.
On one of these low-lying spits they drew up the canoe, and encamped for
that night in the bushes, close enough to the edge to be able to see the
river, where a wide-spreading tree canopied them from the dews of night.
Solemn and inexpressibly sad were the views of life taken by Lawrence
that night as he stood by the river's brink in the moonlight, while his
companions were preparing the evening meal, and gave himself up to the
contemplation of things past, present, and to come,--which is very much
like saying that he thought about nothing in particular. What he felt
quite sure of was that he was horribly depressed--dissatisfied with
himself, his companions and his surroundings, and ashamed in no small
degree of his dissatisfaction. As well he might be; for were not his
companions particularly agreeable, and were not his surroundings
exquisitely beautiful and intensely romantic? The moon in a cloudless
sky glittered in the broad stream, and threw its rippling silver
treasures at his very feet. A gentle balmy air fanned his cheek, on
which mantled the hue of redundant health, and the tremendous puffs and
long-drawn sighs of the alligators, with the growl of jaguars, croak and
whistle of frogs, and the voice of the howling monkey, combined to fill
his ear with the music of thrilling romance, if not of sweetness.
"What more could I wish?" he murmured, self-reproachfully.
A tremendous slap on the face--dealt by his own hand, as a giant
mosquito found and probed some tenderer spot than usual--reminded him
that some few things, which he did not wish for, were left to mingle in
his cup of too great felicity, and reduce it, like water in overproof
whisky, to the level of human capacity.
Still dissatisfied, despite his reflections, he returned to the fire
under the spreading tree, and sat down to enjoy a splendid basin of
turtle soup,--soup prepared by Tiger the day before from the flesh of a
turtle slain by his own hand, and warmed up for the supper of that
evening. A large tin dish or tureen full of the same was placed at his
elbow to tempt his appetite, which, to say truth, required no tempting.
Manuela, having already supped, sat with her little hands clasped in her
lap, and her lustrous eyes gazing pensively into the fire. Perhaps she
was attempting to read her fortune in the blazing embers. Perchance
engaged in thinking of that very common subject--nothing! If Pedro had
smoked the same thing, it would have been better for his health and
pocket; but Pedro, thinking otherwise, fumigated his fine moustache, and
disconcerted the mosquitoes in the region of his nose.
Quashy, having just replenished the fire until the logs rose two feet or
more from the ground, turned his back on the same, warmed his hands
behind him, and gazed up through the over-arching boughs at the starry
sky with that wistfully philosophical expression which negroes are apt
to assume when their thoughts are "too deep," or too complex, "for
utterance."
Spotted Tiger continued to dally with the turtle soup, and seemed loath
to give in as he slowly, with many a pause between, raised the huge iron
spoon to his lips.
No one seemed inclined to break the silence into which they had sunk,
for all were more or less fatigued; and it seemed as if the very brutes
around sympathised with them, for there was a perceptible lull in the
whistling of the frogs, the howling monkeys appeared to have gone to
rest, and the sighing alligators to have subsided and sunk, so that the
breaking of a twig or the falling of a leaf was perceptible to the
listening ear.
Things were in this state of profound and peaceful calm when a slight
rustling was heard among the branches of the tree above them.
The instant glare of Quashy's eyes; the gaze of Manuela's; the cock of
Pedro's ear, and the sudden pause of our hero's spoon on its way to his
lips, were sights to behold! The Indian alone seemed comparatively
indifferent to the sound, though he looked up inquiringly.
At that moment there burst forth an ear-splitting, marrow-shrivelling
blood-curdling yell, that seemed to rouse the entire universe into a
state of wild insanity. There could be no mistaking it--the peculiar,
horrid, shrieking, only too familiar war-whoop of the painted savage!
Quashy staggered back. He could not recover himself, for a log had
caught his heel. To sit down on the fire he knew would be death,
therefore he bounded over it backwards and fell into Lawrence's lap,
crushing that youth's plate almost into the region where the soup had
already gone, and dashing his feet into the tureen!
Lawrence roared; Manuela shrieked; Pedro sprang up and seized his
weapons. So did Lawrence and his man, regardless of the soup.
Tiger alone sat still, conveying the iron spoon slowly to his lips, but
with a peculiar motion of his broad shoulders which suggested that the
usually grave savage was convulsed with internal laughter.
"Ghosts and crokidiles!--what's dat?" gasped Quashy, staring up into the
tree, and ready to fire at the first visible object.
Tiger also looked up, made a peculiar sound with his mouth, and held out
his hand.
Immediately a huge bird, responding to the call, descended from the tree
and settled on his wrist.
Quashy's brief commentary explained it all.
"Purrit!"
It was indeed the Indian's faithful pet-parrot, which he had taught thus
to raise the war-cry of his tribe, and which, having bestowed its entire
affections on its master, was in the habit of taking occasional flights
after him when he went away from home.